Promises, Promises

It became a kind of back-up plan.

Peter knew it was twisted, that it wasn’t normal to be willing to blow a dude or get a chick off just to walk away easier, but Peter had always had to use the skills at his disposal. Turns out, Terrans are a bit more delicate than most other species in the galaxy and not everyone could be charmed to his point of view. Some species were a bit less susceptible to charisma and even worse, some beings, he was pretty sure, would never have considered him in that manner before he'd smiled at them right.

Still, he didn’t need to do it often. And not until years after that first time, once he had a wealth of experience under his belt (and under other peoples). Even when he did have to, he made damn sure never had to feel that helpless, that confused and scared and lonely again. Every time things seemed like they were going south in a way that was leading to the inevitable, Peter made sure he got there first. He batted his eyelashes and smiled knowingly and outright got down on his knees and reached for the other guy’s zipper if that’s what it took to get the message across; Peter Quill will fuck you if you let his friends go. Alive. Or his money. Or his ship. Or one awful time, his Walkman.

Every time it was his idea. No-one ever took anything he wasn’t offering as he always offered.

And he was fine with it. Really. If that was his superpower the he’d gladly use it wherever necessary. He knew he wasn’t really useful for much else. Not strong. Not smart. Not quick. Not intimidating. He’d known it every day with the ravagers after it’d happened. He’d spent months cowering at the bigger, stronger beings on the ship, knowing that if any one of them tried to make him, he’d have no choice but to go along with it.

He’d known he was smaller and weaker before, but that was in a more abstract sense. He’d had a kind of belief that maybe he’d grow out of it, sprout up a few feet and pack on a bunch of muscle and then he’d be unstoppable and all the ravagers would realise how tough he was. He’d truly been a child then, no matter how adult he’d thought he was.

He knew what it meant to be weak now. Knew that there were other ways to get things done, you didn’t always have to overpower the other guy, if you couldn’t give him what he wanted, then change what he wanted and then give him that.

He’d never let another ravager know what he was doing. Kraglin had checked him over, just as Yondu had asked. He’d been pretty thorough too, and that had been humiliating as hell, but he hadn’t found anything but scraped hands and bruised knees. Peter hadn’t really been hurt after all. Sure it had sucked, in a truly awful and humiliating way, but there had been no real damage.

It had been years until he was on another job with the ravagers when he’d needed to do it again. And he’d been careful to make sure the others didn’t see, didn’t know. He’d sucked the guy off as quickly and quietly as he could, under the guise of ‘going to try and talk him round’ and he and the others had been free to leave with the goods instead of being shot in the head and dumped out an airlock. It had worked perfectly and he hadn’t even thrown up this time.

Of course it didn’t work every time. Not everyone was interested in what a Terran male had to offer and sometimes people got real offended when you implied they might have their minds changed by a whore (that was what he was after all – never for money, sure, but that wasn’t where the real distinction lay).

Peter had really only pick-pocketed the woman out of spite. He’d been having a really crappy day; one of the parts in the Milano’s back up life support was on the fritz and, while it was only his backup, it was his only backup. And for life support, you kinda wanted a reliable safety net. Even then, he’d had to go to Xandar to find the right part, and the dealer had been totally unwilling to haggle (which seemed fair enough when he was apparently the only guy in the known universe who sold this particular part). Peter had tried his luck flirting with the dude, but the picture of a pretty, pink woman with a dribbling baby in a frankly alarming shade of violet had only confirmed what he suspected, the dealer wasn’t going to be interested in anything but Peter’s units.

So 30,000 units down the drain for a part he would hopefully never even use, he’d trudged through the well-kept public square, feeling pretty damn out of place in his ravager gear (stained with engine grease –not only was the part hard to find replacements for, it was hard to find in his own damn ship). As he glanced around, self-consciously zipping his jacket up to hide the worst of the stains, his eyes landed on a pretty pink woman. A pretty pink woman pushing a pram, in which sat a bright, violet baby, cooing up at her.

What were the damn odds? It looked like today he would be presented with one of his favourite opportunities, the chance to get someone back. He moved as casually as he could, trying to get a better view of what the woman was carrying as he set himself on course to brush past her. She had a green bag at her side, a likely place to carry units, and far easier to pick-pocket than any actual pocket.

This would be so damn easy.

And it was. He brushed past her, dipped his hand into her bag, grabbed a data stick, slid it into his own pocket, sidled past, turned to head in the direction of his ship, and walked straight into a Nova Corps officer.

“Aw, shit!”

“I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you to come with me.” The officer didn’t look particularly angry, almost amused, he’d clearly seen the whole thing go down and had waited for Peter to incriminate himself. What an A-hole.

“Is that necessary? Really?” Peter had stuff to do today. He didn’t have time for this crap. The part for his ship was resting in his pocket and if he didn’t go put the new one in soon, he’d forget where he got the old one from and be totally screwed. “Can’t I just, you know, give it back?”

“Sorry,” The officer didn’t sound sorry. He turned Peter and drew his arms behind him and into restraints. “Step over here with me, please.”

He led Peter over to a Nova corps patrol vehicle, parked not twenty feet from where they were standing.

“How in the hell did I miss that?” Peter wondered aloud. Yondu was going to kill him when he heard about this. God, he was such a fucking idiot.

The officer clearly agreed, as he let out an undignified snort of laughter and pushed Peter down onto the bench inside the vehicle, shutting the door behind them.

“Right, what’s your name?”

“Star-Lord.” It was going to catch on. Peter might as well get something out of this, and the name was awesome. If he could get the Nova Corps to start calling him by it, it would definitely catch on.

“I’m not calling you that.” Damn it. “What’s your name?”

“Um, Peter Quill. Peter Jason Quill. Look I’ve really got stuff to be doing, are you sure there’s no way to just let this one slide? It was only pick-pocketing and I’m sure you’ve got better things to be-“

“I’m afraid it’s not ‘only pick-pocketing’.” Peter could hear the quotation marks round the words. “The data stick you stole had over one hundred thousand units on it.” Wait, what? “As I’m sure someone like yourself knows, any theft that large would be punishable with a prison sentence.”

No. No, no no. He hadn’t known that many units would be on it. They couldn’t punish him for it if he hadn’t known. Could they? He didn’t know. Shit.

“Are you sure there isn’t anything else I could do?” He’d rather do this subtly as possible. The law officers were always the most hesitant and easy to spook. Especially the Nova Corps guys.

“I’m afraid not.” The guy’s back was turned now as he inputted something into a data terminal. Presumably his report into the incident. Peter had to stop him before he sent it or he’d be on the system and it would be too late.

“I mean, I’d really do anything to get out of this, Officer.” The guy stopped typing and turned round to look down at him. Maybe the guy had an authority kink? Worth a shot. “Please, sir?” He tilted his chin down just a touch and looked up through his eyelashes. Perfect.

“What are you doing?” Or not. Trust his luck to get the dumb rookie who didn’t get it.

Fuck it. If he was going away anyway, might as well add ‘propositioning an officer of the Nova corps’ to the charges. He slipped down off the bench as gracefully as he could (with his hands restrained behind him, he bashed his knee off the floor harder than he was planning and winced).

“Come on, man, I can help you out and maybe you can help me out?” He moved to shuffle forwards and get within a range he could work with, but the officer backed up so far Peter thought he might have climbed clear on top of the data terminal if Peter hadn’t stopped.

“Are you-… Are you offering to-…? I-…” The guy looked horrified. Clearly Peter had made an error here and he may very well have screwed himself in the process. Damn he was such a fucking moron sometimes.

“Aw shit, man. I didn’t mean to scare you.”

“Scare me? I mean-… What in the stars made you think that would work?”

“Worked before. I mean-…” Great now he’d told the guy there were other charges he’d dodged. “Not that I was ever-… It was only minor stuff, like; they didn’t need to actually charge me minor; vandalism, he was just a nova asshole. I mean-… Not that the Nova Corps are-… I’m gonna shut up now. Yeah.”

Peter Quill: disaster.

The officer looked a little confused. Which, of all the reactions he could have has to that bit of verbal diarrhoea, was far from the worst thing that could have happened.

He hauled Peter up and sat him back down on the bench before sitting beside him.

“Do you mean to tell me that Nova Corps officers coerced sexual favours from you in exchange for not charging you for vandalism? A crime for which the first offence would normally be punishable only with an official warning?”

“A warning…?” Peter looked over at the officer, noticing he actually looked a little pale. He felt kinda bad for the guy, clearly he was new at this. “Huh… I didn’t know that. Well, I guess I bought myself another first offence…”

The officer made a strange strangled noise.

“Do you remember the name of the officer? It should still be possible to bring charges if you want to.”

“Why would I want charges…?”

“I mean, it’s up to you of course, but if he’s tried this with you then there’s a good chance he’s tried it wi-”

“You meant against him?!” This was not going at all how Peter had planned and he really wasn’t sure how to play it. At least the guy had stopped inputting his data.

“Of course, I-… Mr Quill, a Nova Officer sexually assaulted you. You understand that that is what you are describing to me?”

No. Peter hadn’t been a victim here. He’d told himself he’d never be a victim again and he’d made damn sure of it. He’d been the one to suggest the deal. He’d been the one to go through with it. So, he hadn’t really been in any danger of being shipped off to the Kyln, so what? It didn’t change anything.

“I don’t want to charge anyone with anything.”

“Are you sure? Because like I said, you may not be the only victim that-“

“I said no!” Peter didn’t want to be here. He didn’t want to listen to this man anymore. He wasn’t a victim.

“Okay.” The officer held up his hands, placating. “That’s okay… Can you hold still for me while I take off the restraints?”

“Wh-.. Sure…” Why was he taking off the restraints?

“In light of the fact you didn’t know how many units were involved, it doesn’t seem fair to treat this theft as anything more than a pickpocketing offence.” Somehow, everything was going his way… He hadn’t done anything to earn this reprieve. He didn’t deserve it. He wasn’t going to turn it down though.

“As this is your first offence on Xandar,” He said with a pointed glance at the list of other systems Peter had ‘offences’ on record from, “And as you are just under twenty-one Terran cycles, and therefore not yet considered a Terran adult, I will let you go with an official warning.”

“Thank you! Thanks so mu-”

“But,” Of course there were conditions. He’d been foolish to hope; there were always conditions. “You must promise me you will not let any member of the Nova Corps, or anyone else for that matter, get away with taking advantage of you like that again. You report them, you understand me? Just because you’ve been in trouble with the law, doesn’t mean it won’t protect you too. And if you change your mind about reporting what’s happened, just give me a call. Promise?”

It was kind of awkward how earnest he was; Peter wasn’t sure he could handle that much sincerity in such an enclosed space. He knew he would never call, but if he wanted out, he could go along with it.

He took the card with the officer’s details and glanced down. Rhomann Dey; Nova Corps. He looked back up to see Dey watching him closely.

“I promise.”